This invention relates generally to the cooling of windows placed on high speed flight vehicles.
Certain modifications of flight vehicle surfaces for aerodynamic drag reducing purposes have been proposed and tested, involving in common diversion of boundary layer flow into a surface cavity to establish a passive internal circulating flow for drag reduction purposes. One of such modifications includes the use of a porous cavity partition within a surface recess through which circulating flow is conducted to reduce surface drag by control of internal cavity flow. According to another of such surface modifications, a pivoted drag head mounted flush with the surface is utilized to control circulating flow within the cavity. An important discovery of the present invention resides in the use of certain diverse aspects of the foregoing surface drag reducing techniques to provide for windows cooling in a novel and unexpectedly beneficial manner.
It is therefore an important object of the present invention to provide a method and means for cooling windows in flight vehicle surfaces, otherwise subjected to aerodynamic heating damage, in a less expensive manner and without excessive addition of burdensome weight to the flight vehicle.